What does Emotional Labor, Woman’s Work, and Retirement Have in Common?

Or Epiphany Over a Toilet

Cleaning a toilet (or sitting on one), or taking the dog out, or doing the litter boxes all seem to be a time for me to manifest great philosophical ruminations.

As I watched the brown rings disappear on the end of my toilet bowl brush, I remembered a former coworker telling the story of how visiting friends complemented her husband on his great yard work but no one had commented on her shining toilet (“after I had my head in it, scrubbing…”).

I remembered that because I’d been thinking of writing an article on Woman’s Work and Emotional Labor. The same day I found a New York Times article about how women should retire later than men because they live longer and they would get more monthly Social Security benefits. Thinking, of course, that Social Security will be around when anyone after the Baby Boomers retire.

And while scrubbing away at the toilet, I had my epiphany. It freakin’ all goes together!

What goes together?

Well, I’m here to tell you.

1. Emotional Labor is mostly done by women.

2. Jobs that are usually overlooked (unless they aren’t done at all) are mostly done by women.

3 Women can only retire from the job that gives them a paycheck.

Just try retiring from #1 and #2, especially if you’re married and/or the matriarch of a family

There have been many articles written in the last five years about Emotional Labor — jobs that are nonpaying and usually done by women, women in the office, women in the home, etc.

Christine Hutchinson, Executive Editor for Psyched in San Francisco wrote about emotional labor from a therapist’s viewpoint in the Huffington Post in April 2016 (with an update in December 2017):

I was introduced to the concept of “Emotional Labor,” from sex workers who were tweeting about the topic. These women talked about how they get compensated for their sexual labor, but a huge part of their job is emotional work (listening, validating, pretending to feel something for the sake of the other), which is assumed by the male clients to be given for free.

But it’s not just sex workers, it happens in doctor’s office, office secretaries (or female accountants), female teachers…look at whatever work congregation (even church offices) that has female employees. Who arranges birthday parties, baby showers, Christmas decorations? Who does the extra work for bosses (buying gifts, answering invitations…) Not Joe but Josephine. Who does the distressed coworker go to for any kind of emotional support (there’s that word “emotional” again)?

I saw this over and over again as I worked twenty plus years in the corporate setting. The women doing the routine but very necessary jobs in a corporation’s office were also the ones who did that emotional labor — some of it done outside of regular work time. Joe, the head account didn’t do it.

In her 2017 essay Emma Hartley wrote: “the subject of all the behind-the-scenes work they do,” and how “it’s frustrating to be saddled with all of these responsibilities, no one to acknowledge the work you are doing, and no way to change it without a major confrontation.”

Every “family” thing that needs to be arranged for or bought for ordered for (from holidays to birthdays to vacations), the wife/mother usually does it. In my first marriage I did it even though I also worked full time and was the major wage earner. In my second marriage, although we’re both retired, it’s still my responsibility.

These are the “jobs” that have always been considered “woman’s work.” You know — the work that doesn’t go from “sun to sun.”

When I was nine months pregnant, ready to burst but still able to work as a nurse, we lived in a very small, old apartment whose bathroom had a deep claw foot metal tub and no shower. I had trouble getting in and out of it so about a month before I was due I’d started taking sponge baths at the sink. One day my husband called me into the bathroom and pointed to the tub. “There’s a ring around the tub,” he said as if telling me a marvelous fact.

I quickly replied, “That’s your ring. I stopped using the bathtub weeks ago. I didn’t want to fall. I’m now taking sponge baths. And furthermore, I can’t bend over to clean it.”

Fast forward almost fifty years to a second marriage. Present husband is working diligently on a clogged toilet; it takes him most of an afternoon and it’s finally clear. Luckily we have a small bathroom downstairs but I usually take showers upstairs where I have my toiletries. “Thanks, dear. I’m going upstairs to take my shower.” He, seeming in total innocence, says, “There’s some water on the floor.” When I walked into the bathroom, I was like WTF? The “some water” was a puddle about four feet in diameter and about a quarter of an inch deep; both bath and sink mats were saturated. I hit the bathroom ceiling. I walked out, got in my car, and drove around. But not without saying, “Please clean up your mess.” He did but only partly. I finished, of course. Because it was “my” job.

I’ve found it’s not just about housework.

Back to the first marriage and my seemingly endless search for childcare before and after school. When I finally accomplished someone to care for our daughter before school and after, my husband said, “I knew you would do it.” Not “could” do it (which I might have forgiven…might have) but “would.” Because childcare was the wife/mother’s responsibility.

Emotional labor is a carry-over from when the wife was a stay-at-home everything. She “had the time” to do these things; it was part of her responsibility. In 100 years, that hasn’t changed. It was still “my” job.

Granted some women (maybe many, bless ’em) enjoy these duties and take to them like a duck to… But times have changed drastically. There are many mothers, single or married, out there juggling one, two, or three jobs and trying to keep up with the PTA’s Bake Sale, the grandparents’ visits, teacher meetings, cleaning, laundry, trying to find babysitters for a change in work hours…and on and on…and on.

So back to the original question…should women retire later?

I really think the question is: DO women retire at all?

On seeing my datebook, my friend commented. “I thought you were retired. That looks like a full month.”

I’ve been retired from nursing for six years and I’m six years into my second, late-in-life marriage and my answer is, no.

I’m doing the management of two people, coordinating visits and holidays with two different families, and keeping up one large house.

I’m not retiring any time soon.